R&B/Hip-Hop
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Sexyy Red could’ve been a wrestler in the WWE universe.
During a profile with Dazed, it was revealed that the St. Louis rapper was offered “a permanent role as wrestler.” However, Sexyy’s busy schedule didn’t allow for proper time to train and she ultimately settled for cameo instead. And when talking about the subject, she compared her current occupation with sports entertainment. “Rapping and wrestling are pretty much the same,” she explained. “It’s not quite acting, but it’s kind of acting too, right? Because when we go home and take off all our jewels and gold and remove the costumes we wear, we then have to go right back to reality with our families.”
Sexxy made her WWE debut last May when she hosted NXT where she unveiled the brand new NXT North American Women’s Championship belt and sang Shawn Michael’s iconic “Sexy Boy” theme song with the legend himself. She then hosted NXT Battleground in Nevada a couple months later.
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Elsewhere in the profile, she said what she would change if she became president and admitted to having around 600 pairs of True Religion jeans. “I would give all the hungry poor people free food,” she said. So they don’t have to steal it no more, because it’s too expensive right now. Food should be free! No one should ever be homeless.”
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Adding, “The people at the bottom are my favorite kind of people, period. I like people that wear True Religion jeans, even though they’re [seen as being] too ghetto. I’ve got like 600 pairs! I represent the people with no airs and graces.”
She also talked about the hardships of fame and how she’s still racially profiled when she goes back home. “Trying to live a normal life is difficult when you’re famous,” she admitted. “Sometimes y’all be so annoying. If you see me with my babies bagging up groceries, then get the f—k away from me. No photos!”
She continued by saying the more famous she gets, the more she feels unsafe. “I feel like with me, the more famous I get, the more people will see me as a threat,” she added. “As I get bigger and more viral, there’s going to be more and more people who want to harm me, 100 percent.”
Sexyy then brought up her dealing with law enforcement in her hometown. “The police in St. Louis just shot another Black kid dead the other day. That sh—t’s so wrong,” she said. “When I go back home, there are usually two outcomes [when I am stopped in traffic]: they either like your music and want to tell you about their kids being fans, or they choose to mess with you even more [now you’re this celebrity]! Sometimes they pick on me or just fuck with me for fun. They like to remind you of where you are. It’s all about reinforcing their position [of power].”
Her song with Bruno Mars “Fat Juicy & Wet” currently sits at No. 34 on the Hot 100 where it peaked at No. 17 and has been on the chart for two weeks.
Drake and PartyNextDoor are dropping their joint album $ome $exy $ongs 4 U on Thursday night, and one song title on the recently revealed track list stuck out: The duo named the project’s ninth track “Brian Steel” after the attorney who represented Young Thug during his much-publicized RICO trial. New York Times reporter Joe Coscarelli […]
Cardi B entered the year single for the first time in a long time and she’s embracing her new sense of freedom. Not only for herself, but the Grammy-winning rapper wants the Bardi Gang back outside and maintaining their single status with her. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts […]
There’s a new Mobb Deep album in the works. The Alchemist made an appearance on The Breakfast Club on Wednesday (Feb. 12) to promote his new album, Life Is Beautiful, with Larry June and 2 Chainz, where he broke the news after praising the late Prodigy‘s work ethic and writing skills. “They did so much […]
Following the success of his first project, Culture Jam with NBA superstar Kawhi Leonard, founder Essean Bolden returns with the second compilation, but with a twist: Enter 23-year-old NBA wunderkind Anthony Edwards. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “We are beyond excited to partner with Anthony [Edwards], […]
Since filing for divorce from ex-husband Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) in 2021, Kim Kardashian has mostly kept quiet about the couple’s relationship, how they are co-parenting their four children and whatever feelings she might have about West’s repeated public meltdowns in which he spouts hate-filled antisemitic invective for days on end.
But in Thursday’s (Feb. 13) episode of The Kardashians, Kim opened up a bit about what may have caused the dissolution of the couple’s marriage while bonding with sister Khloé about her own marital issues. After having an emotional reunion with her ex-husband, retired NBA player Lamar Odom, after nine years apart, Khloé said she got married “too quickly” to Odom.
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Though their marriage lasted only five tumultuous years, Khloé said she “wouldn’t change a thing” about marrying the man she called the “love of my life,” lamenting that if it weren’t for Odom’s well-publicized struggles with substance use they might still be together. “I know I picked the right person at that time,” she told Kim and their mother, Kris Jenner, in the episode.
Kim seemed to relate to the sentiment, seemingly referencing her struggles with West, saying, “That’s the hardest part. I’ve been there. When you don’t foresee something happening that really changes a person’s personality and then they’re not the same person and you can’t ever get that person back, but you can’t live with the new person. I get it.”
Kim had more to say in a confessional segment, adding, “It’s tougher when you don’t want your marriage to end off of personal reasons but circumstances change that force your marriage to end. When you weren’t planning on that and that’s not really the outcome you want but there’s no other option, I think it makes it harder to get over.”
While the SKIMS founder never specifically named West in the episode of the Hulu series, it appeared as if she was referencing their relationship, which ended with Kardashian stating in a petition to be considered legally single in early 2022 that Ye was “creating emotional distress” by sharing “misinformation” about their private family matters.
While the reality star was open to talking about what she said at the time was West’s struggle with bipolar disorder during their relationship, the rapper recently claimed that his now-wife, Bianca Censori, has told him that he was mis-diagnosed and is likely on the autism spectrum.
Kardashian’s comments on the show — which is taped months before the episodes air — came just a few days after West deleted his X account following a four-day spree of virulently antisemitic posts in which he declared once again “I’m a Nazi” and “I love Hitler,” before briefly offering a shirt emblazoned with a Nazi swastika for sale on his Yeezy site.
The offensive posts have once again caused serious professional fall-out for West, who has been criticized for spreading hate speech by the ADL and fellow artists, as well as being dropped by his booking agent and hit with a lawsuit by a Jewish staffer who alleged that he compared himself to Hitler and threatened her because she is Jewish.
2 Chainz was one of the Atlanta artists Kendrick Lamar named in the third verse of “Not Like Us” who had worked with Drake in the past before proceeding to call him “not a colleague” but a “colonizer.” And now, the “Watch Out” rapper is sharing his thoughts on the mention.
Chainz stopped by The Breakfast Club on Wednesday (Feb. 12) with Larry June and The Alchemist in support of their Life Is Beautiful album, and Charlamagne Tha God asked the rapper formerly known as Tity Boi about Lamar name-dropping him on the Drake diss that arrived last May.
“I just think it was kind of like some wordplay, ’cause Drake and I got a song called ‘No Lie,’” said the rapper, who has teamed up with Drizzy in the past for other tracks, including “All Me,” “Big Amount,” “F–kin’ Problems” and more. “And so when he said he lied, it just felt like, I don’t know, but I didn’t take it as no kind of way. I don’t think he was taking a shot at me.”
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He continued: “I’ve heard all type of instances where somebody want me to say something back. I just think it was a moment where it was about Atlanta artists.”
On the Grammy-winning track, which went on to top the Billboard Hot 100 and break the record for most weeks atop the Hot Rap Songs chart, Lamar rhymes: “2 Chainz say you good, but he lied/ You run to Atlanta when you need a few dollars/ No, you not a colleague, you a f—in’ colonizer.”
June, meanwhile, said he hasn’t heard “Not Like Us” in its entirety. “I never heard that full song,” he said. “I f–k with everybody. I just didn’t particularly hear that song fully. I heard a lot of it on Instagram and stuff like that. But I was doing the album with him at the time, so I wasn’t really listening to too much s–t like that.”
The Alchemist, who produced “Meet the Grahams,” expanded on how the diabolical Drake diss came to be, noting it was actually built around a gospel sample. “Yeah, that’s a gospel record. Yeah, the sample was,” he said. “I wanna be Switzerland really. Leave me out of it, but they end up making me the battleground … I had sent the record to Dot months before that happened and I heard it when everyone else heard it.”
Watch 2 Chainz, Larry June and The Alchemist talk about “Not Like Us” on The Breakfast Club below:
Drake and PartyNextDoor are here to spice up your Valentine’s Day. The OVO pairing shared the tracklist to their anticipated $ome $exy $ongs 4 U joint project on Thursday (Feb. 13), just a day before it hits streaming services. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The effort is […]
When it comes to making love songs, arguably no other genre has mastered that craft to the degree of R&B.
Its smooth melodic mix of jazz, blues and gospel rhythms, coupled with emotion-packing vocals, dates back to the ‘40s. Since then, the genre has undergone various iterations in its ongoing evolution — soul, funk, hip-hop, neo-soul, contemporary and alternative — while heavily influencing other genres along the way, such as rock n’ roll, country and pop.
Lyrical themes have run the gamut as well, from freedom, protest and pride to joy, pain and simply surviving. But when it comes to the subject of love in particular, R&B brims with colorful and insightful takes on every phase of that rollercoaster emotion: first encounter, between the sheets, courtship, break-up, make-up, marriage, divorce … then taking aim once again with the aid of Cupid’s arrow.
So in celebration of love and Valentine’s Day — and also in recognition of Black History Month — Billboard has compiled a chart-based tally of the Top 50 R&B Songs of All Time. Going back 60 years, the list encompasses the genre’s rich legacy of legendary solo singers and groups, as well as their contemporary counterparts delivering slow-burning ballads, bouncy bops and midtempo paeons to love. All of which are connected by one throughline: Love never goes out of style. And neither do these timeless gems.
Billboard’s Top 50 R&B Love Songs of All Time is based on weekly performance on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart from Jan. 30, 1965, (then the Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles chart) through Feb. 1, 2025. The tally is comprised of songs whose main theme revolves around romantic love versus love of self and others, heartbreak or strictly physical attraction. Songs are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at lower spots earning the least. Due to changes in chart methodology over the years, eras are weighted differently to account for chart turnover rates during various periods.
Miguel, “Adorn”
Go tell them people that Westside Gunn is outside dumpin’ again. The Buffalo rapper and Griselda label boss just dropped off the lead single to his upcoming project 12 due out Valentine’s Day and it goes very hard. Produced by Griselda affiliate Rick Hyde’s teenage son Myles and directed by Daily Gems, “Outlander” finds Gunn […]